


watcha gonna do when there’s blood in the water

by always_an_anxious_mess



Category: Minecraft - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: All my homies hate c!Dream, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Anyways, BAMF TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), BAMF Wilbur Soot, Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Child Abuse, Gen, Ghost Jschlatt (Video Blogging RPF), Ghost TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Ghost Wilbur Soot, Gore, Hurt TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Surprisingly, Villain Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot and TommyInnit are Siblings, canon is what i make it, hey wait how the FUCK do you tag Mexican Dream, so far - Freeform, they play uno in the afterlife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:15:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29953287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/always_an_anxious_mess/pseuds/always_an_anxious_mess
Summary: He was laying in a clearing full of flowers, and he could hear water lapping on a shore nearby. The air was dead still, not even the faintest of breezes. The sun beat down on him, though not enough to make him feel hot or need to sweat.How did he get here?Where was he?
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 352
Collections: Completed stories I've read





	watcha gonna do when there’s blood in the water

**Author's Note:**

> **tw// graphic descriptions of injuries, blood, gore**

Huh.

He was laying on something soft yet prickly, tickling the back of his head and neck as well as poking him in the arms and legs. Light was shining on his face,warmth being spread down his body from it. Tommy’s eyes blinked open blearily, before immediately shutting them again with a soft groan, blinded by something he couldn’t see.

It took him several seconds before he tried again, this time raising an arm to shield his face. The limb was heavy, near-unresponsive, but it moved without pain at least.

Without the light blinding him, he was able to blink and adjust, nose scrunching up and brows furrowing in confusion at his surroundings.

He was laying in a clearing full of flowers, and he could hear water lapping on a shore nearby. The air was dead still, not even the faintest of breezes. The sun beat down on him, though not enough to make him feel hot or need to sweat.

How did he get here?

Where was he?

His confusion only grew stronger as his mind started to kick back on.

Where had he been before now?

Tommy removed his arm from his face and squinted up at the sky, finding it baby blue and cloudless. His hands grabbed fistfuls of grass, and he pushed himself unsteadily into a sitting position.

His toes wiggled in the grass a bit as he bent his knees. Tommy frowned at his legs. Hadn’t he been wearing shorts? If he had, he wasn’t anymore. Donned in a pair of jeans instead, and the shoes that he vaguely remembered having on were also missing, replaced by cloth bandages wrapped around his bare feet as a makeshift form of protection.

He was even more miffed at the lack of pain. There had been a lot, last he could remember, but he couldn’t recall why. The ghostly traces of aches that weren’t there rippled over his ribs, head, and face before fading once more.

Tommy glanced around, finding no one and nothing around him. There was a forest about a mile away, a lake much nearer. But there wasn’t anything else. No animals, no people, no buildings, no wind, no clouds, nothing.

Gathering his legs underneath him, he got up onto his feet slowly and shakily, like a newborn fawn trying to walk for the first time. His legs trembled with the strain of holding him up, and Tommy found that his arms were instinctively extended slightly to catch himself in case he fell over.

“Hello?” he called, finding his voice to be raspy and weak, but loud enough to echo through the clearing. _Hello? Hello? hello?_ “Is anyone there?” _anyone there? anyone there? —one there?_

The echoes were his only responses, and Tommy could only stand still, unsure of what to do or where to go.

Wait, his communicator. He had it, he remembered having it at least. His hands immediately went to his pocket where he recalled putting it before... before... he didn’t remember the before, he just knew where his communicator was.

Or, where it should be.

The pocket where his communicator should be was empty. As was the rest of his pockets, including the one of the red and white shortsleeved hoodie he didn’t remember wearing. He was pretty sure he’d been wearing his normal red and white shirt, not a hoodie.

Tommy stared at his empty hands blankly. What was he supposed to do? No communicator, no idea where he was, no memories telling him how he got here or what he’d been doing before.

Well... first things first. He needed to stay alive.

He glanced at the sky, finding it to be about noon. That gave him some time to build a makeshift shelter and a wooden sword before nightfall. But first, he needed water. Water, then shelter, then a sword, then food.

Tommy spotted the lake again and started hobbling towards it, finding his balance to be unsteady, so he was basically walking like a toddler who falls over every few steps. Except he knew when to stop so he didn’t fall over. He was making it, but a lot slower than he wanted to.

The lake was dark bluish-green in color, and Tommy could make out algae and other underwater plants inside. He would’ve preferred a river, but this would be fine, probably.

He shouldn’t drink it, not without boiling it first, but he didn’t have a container to put it in for that. Looks like he was just going to have to take the risk, not that he felt particularly thirsty at the moment.

Tommy knelt down at the shore and cupped some water in his palms. He was bringing it up to drink when he caught his reflection in the lake.

He screamed, the sound echoing through the clearing like a horrible song, dropping the water and scooting back from the lake’s edge, breathing hard. His hands scrabbled at the grass, heart racing a million miles a minute.

Tommy took several deep breaths to try and calm himself down. It couldn’t have been real, it was just a trick of the light. Stop freaking out, he didn’t have time to waste. He would have to go over and look again, to reassure himself that it wasn’t real and he’d just seen it wrong.

Instead of standing up, he just crawled unsteadily forward and forced himself to look down into the lake at his reflection.

The image was distorted by the movement of the waves, but it was clear enough for him to see it.

His breathing quickened, eyes widening as one of his hands unsteadily raised up and brushed over his skin, where blood trickled down from his hair in a flood. The streams of the red liquid were numerous, to the point there was more blood then skin.

Two twin trails leaked from his nostrils, and some from his mouth and ears as well. But he couldn’t feel them. There wasn’t any liquid in his nose, he couldn’t taste any blood in his mouth, his ears weren’t clogged by anything. There wasn’t anything _there_.

But when it was on the outside, down his lips and chin and jaw, he could feel them with his fingers, but not on his face.

A choked sob escaped his lips, and he frantically searched for the source of the wound that was making him bleed this badly. He was going to bleed to death if he didn’t find it and staunch the flow. There was a shit-ton of blood already, it was a miracle he hadn’t passed out or died yet.

His fingers scour his hair and scalp, his breathing picking up until he’s hyperventilating and his heart is jackrabbiting in his chest again. He’s panicking, a panic attack hitting him full force as he tries to find out where the wound is. How was he bleeding so much and not feeling any pain? What is _happening_ to him?

Finally, his hands found a matted, sticky section of his hair and he digs into it, uncaring of injuring himself further. He pulls apart the knotted, clumped strands until he reaches his scalp and—

—there was something soft, and squishy.

Not the skin pulled taut over his skull but something else. A warm liquid was spilling over his hands, more blood. It was at the topmost back of his head, where skull curved. Tommy gingerly felt for the edges of the wound, finding a few jagged and sharp things inside of it. He’d have to pull those out before it got infected.

But... what was it?

There was something that didn’t make sense. The skin on his head was way too thin to be that pliable when it was injured. Plus, the way the wound was shaped wasn’t a natural cut that the average pebble may have gotten into. And the fact that the foreign objects were in so deep... much deeper than his skin or even his skull was...

Tommy’s eyes widen further the moment he realizes, his hands snatching away from the wound and doubling over as his stomach churned. Nothing was coming up, despite his retching. He was dry heaving onto the grass, hands fisted in his hoodie.

He was touching his brain. His fucking _brain_. The hard things were fragments of his skull, logically. What had caused this type of injury? When had it happened? _How the hell was he alive right now?_

How was he alive? How? His brain was fucking exposed to the air. There’s no way he could be alive—

—oh.

Everything was flooding back now. Getting trapped in the prison with Dream for a week. Getting into an argument, the fight. Dream pinning him against the wall, grabbing him by the hair, and slamming his head against the obsidian over and over and over again. Feeling his last life slip through his fingers slowly, painfully. Being stuck their, dazedly, staring out at the lava as blood pooled from his hair and staining the obsidian beneath him until it went dark.

He was dead. He was _dead. He was dead. HE WAS DEAD. **HE WAS DEAD.**_

Tommy couldn’t stop the sobs that crawled their way out of his mouth. He couldn’t even find the energy to be pissed that his fucking abuser took all three of his lives, that he was fucking dead right as everything was starting to look up again. He’d gone to the prison for closure, and now he was fucking dead.

“Tommy?”

His breath hitched, biting back the whimper that wanted to escape. Shaking, he raised his head, eyes wide, and made eye contact with Wilbur.

Wilbur, not Ghostbur, was standing about a hundred feet away, staring at him with wide brown eyes. There was a stain on his shirt, where Phil’s sword had gone through him, but other than that, he looked completely normal. Completely alive.

“I’m fuckin’ dead,” Tommy rasped, wide eyed and trembling. “I’m _dead_ , Wilbur.”

Wilbur’s eyes softened, and he came running over, coat billowing out behind him, before kneeling the grass next to the blonde. “Oh Toms,” the brunette murmured, horrified, seemingly having seen the gaping hole in the back of his little brother’s head. “What happened?”

Tommy sniffed, sitting up and scrubbing his tears away with a vigorous hand. “Fuckin’ Dream happened,” there was a wobble to his voice as he spoke of the man. “I was trapped, trapped in the prison with him. We got into an argument... and... and... he kept slamming my head into the obsidian, Will. Over and over and over and over and—”

“Hey, shh,” Wilbur said softly, as if trying not to spook a scared animal. “It’s okay, come here.”

Tommy sniffed again, before surging forward and clinging to Wilbur tightly, afraid the moment he let go, the brunette would be gone. “I’m dead,” he choked out. “I’m fucking dead. I’m _dead_.”

“I know,” Wilbur was rubbing circles into his back, and Tommy was leaning into it more than he’d like to admit.

“I’m _dead_. I’m fucking dead.”

“I know. It— It’s not okay, but you’ll be okay.”

“How can I be okay if I’m fucking dead Wilbur?!”

“I don’t know,” Wilbur admitted, hugging him tighter. “It’ll get better, I promise. Fuck, you weren’t supposed to die yet. I was supposed to see you fifty years from now. It’s not fair.”

“Nothing in life’s fair,” Tommy muttered bitterly, squeezing the brunette tighter. “We’re both dead.”

“That we are.”

They stayed like that for a while, holding each other in the grass. Two ghosts, kneeling in a field of flowers on the shore of a small lake, with not a cloud in the sky nor a breeze through the air.

“If this is the afterlife, it kinda sucks,” Tommy mumbled into Wilbur’s shoulder.

The brunette laughed, just as he had done whenever Tommy said something ridiculous or factually incorrect back when he was alive, before he went insane. It startled a chuckle from Tommy as well, a smile twitching on his face.

“This isn’t the afterlife,” Wilbur explained. “This is where the ghosts go when they first die. To adjust. The amount of time they’re in here depends on how traumatic their death was. Someone always comes to guide them out when they’re ready, that’s why I’m here.”

“If that’s true, I’m pretty sure I’d be in here longer. It’s been like, an hour, maybe less,” Tommy sniffed, tilting his head up enough to scrub the tears from his eyes before pushing his face back into Wilbur’s shoulder.

He felt Wilbur tense beneath him, and Tommy instinctively tried to pull away, worried he’d upset him. His body also stiffened, subconsciously preparing for a blow, because that’s what happened when he upset people. Dream hit him, Wilbur had hit him back in Pogtopia.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Wilbur immediately relaxed, seemingly having noticed Tommy’s tension as he resumed rubbing circles into the teen’s back, his other hand being gently placed over the back of his neck in attempt to be comforting. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

The blonde didn’t relax, he didn’t dare, though he wanted to. Tommy desperately wanted to melt into the embrace, to not have to worry what might happen to him if he were to do so. But after Pogtopia Wilbur, after Dream, he just couldn’t.

He could still hold Wilbur, though his grip wasn’t nearly as tight as before. His shoulders and back were stiff, basically broadcasting to his older brother that he couldn’t trust him to not hurt him.

Wilbur, however, didn’t comment on it, instead changing the subject as if nothing had happened. “It hasn’t been an hour, Tommy,” the brunette sounded heartbroken, but was clearly forcing a more casual tone. “It’s been two weeks. You were asleep for most of it.”

Tommy paused, blinking, before a disbelieving laugh escaped him. “Yeah that— that sounds about right.”

They were thrust into silence once more.

Tommy could practically feel the concern radiating off of Wilbur, but he forced himself to stamp it down and ignore it. He was dead, after all. Emotions couldn’t matter too much if you’re dead.

“It’s okay if you’re not alright, Tommy,” Wilbur pulled away slightly, but still held onto the teen’s arms, his eyes soft and full of worry. “You... you don’t have to be okay right away.”

“Yeah well,” Tommy shrugged, trying to keep his hands from shaking too visibly. “I’m dead, doesn’t matter too much now.”

“It does matter,” Wilbur reached up and cupped Tommy’s cheek, and the teen unconsciously leaned into it, eyes slipping shut. “You don’t have to be okay. You’ve got eternity to heal—”

“I don’t wanna talk about this,” Tommy interrupted, eyes opening and reaching up to grab the brunette’s hand, lowering it from his face. “Not... not yet, at least. I can’t... I can’t...”

“That’s okay,” Wilbur reassured him, gripping onto his hands and standing up, urging the teen to do so as well. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

Tommy hesitated at first, but stood up anyways, still wobbling on his feet like an infant who was learning to walk. Wilbur, however, didn’t seem surprised, helping steady him without complaint.

“You ready to come back with me?” Wilbur asked, brushing Tommy’s hair out of his face. “Mexican Dream is definitely annoying the hell out of Schlatt right now, if I don’t get back soon, Schlatt will try and kill him.”

“I’m not going to lie, I would rather like to see that,” Tommy laughed weakly.

“If you want to stay for a little while longer, you can.”

Tommy shook his head. “No, no. I... I’ll be okay. I want to go with you.”

Wilbur smiled, softly, reassuringly. “Let’s go then.”

* * *

Tommy felt the tugging, the pulling, the feeling as if someone had dug a fishhook into his sternum and started to spin the reel. It had only grown stronger for the past two weeks, yanking so hard sometimes that he would stumble forward, only able to be stabled by one of the other ghosts, either Wilbur, or Schlatt, or even Mexican Dream on occasion.

“Someone is trying to bring you back,” Schlatt had said on that last day, while the four of them were engaged in a fierce game of Uno. “You won’t be able to stay here forever.”

“Tomas, the boring Dream is trying to bring you back man,” Mexican Dream didn’t even flinch as Wilbur slammed down a plus four.

“I don’t want to go back,” Tommy admitted, laying down his own blue card as Mexican Dream drew four new cards.

“You don’t have much of a choice,” Schlatt pointed out, changing the color to red, causing Wilbur to groan in frustration.

“I’ll be trapped in there with him again,” Tommy swallowed, unable to hide the tremor in his voice. His hand, the one not holding his deck of cards, reached up and brushed against the matted hair on the back of his head, beneath which the open wound still lay. No matter how much he had tried to scrub the blood off his face and out of his hair, it would always reappear. “I can’t do that again. I _can’t_.”

“Tommy,” Wilbur set down his cards, something Tommy had never thought his older brother would do during one of their Uno games. They had played it a lot in the past month and a half, and never once did his competitive older brother put down his cards for anything. “I have a plan for when Dream revives you, but you’re really not going to like it.”

“Sounds fun,” Tommy said dryly, raising an eyebrow and wincing as another sharp tug came from his chest. His empty hand came up and rubbed the spot where it felt like the hook was, wishing it would go away.

“When you get back,” Wilbur began, his dark eyes sharp, revealing how serious he was about what he was about to say. “You must convince Dream to bring me back. He wants to, I know he does. You must ensure he does it.”

“I didn’t think you wanted to go back,” Tommy blanched, blinking in surprise.

“This isn’t about me anymore, this is about revenge, revenge on what he did to you,” Wilbur’s eyes glinted. “I’m going to make him pay. But he needs to bring me back first. Do whatever it takes, but convince him to bring me back.”

“Dream won’t believe a word that comes out of my mouth.”

“Then convince him to not bring me back,” Wilbur raised an eyebrow, grinning. “Be loud, be anxious. Ramble, do the shaky breath thing you do, call out for Phil and Tubbo and Sam. Be terrified out of your mind. Grab him, and plead with him to not bring me back. He would do it just to spite you, and you know it.”

“You want me to have a panic attack, or at least fake one,” Tommy sat back against the wall, crossing his arms. “That... might just work.”

“But you have to sell it, and sell it hard,” Schlatt cocked his head to the side, the bright blue veins in his neck glowing faintly. “You better be one hell of an actor, kid.”

“You can do it, Tomas,” Mexican Dream reached out and clapped a hand on Tommy’s shoulder.

There was another yank, sharp enough to make Tommy gasp and lurch forward. Three pairs of hands immediately latched onto him, steadying him and helping him sit back up.

Tommy leaned back against the wall, hands clutched over the spot on his sternum and squeezing his eyes shut. The tugging was painful now, sending spikes of agony through his whole body with every pull.

“It hurts,” he said through gritted teeth.

“It’ll be okay, kid.”

“Stay strong, Tomas.”

“I believe in you Tommy, I’m proud of you.”

With that, he was gone, tumbling through free space with flashes of bright lights echoing through his vision. Green threads tied to his wrists, ankles, and neck, flickered in and out of existence. Echoes of voices he couldn’t quite hear surrounded him.

Immense heat pulsed through his veins and wafted over his face. Soon replaced by freezing cold, and the the heat again. For one moment, he was leaning on a hard surface, then he was tumbling back through the void.

Excruciating pain flared through his whole body, drawing a pained wail out of his throat. It flared again, and again, and again. His wails turned into bloodcurdling screams, unable to silence himself.

His eyes snapped open, and everything was too bright yet too dark. His nerves felt like they were on the fire, burning brighter and brighter. The stone underneath him was too hard and too cold. Heat seared his skin, feeling as if it was cooking him alive.

His lungs ached, the feeling becoming stronger and harder to ignore as he continued to sit, unable to move.

Wait... breathe.

His jaw unclenched and he inhaled greedily, his breath coming out loud and wheezing. His fingers twitched, and he blinked, tears of pain flowing down his cheeks.

Tommy’s vision slowly began to clear, the throbbing in his head growing worse. There was blood staining his clothes, soaking the fabric red. He was surrounded by obsidian, with lava flowing freely on one of the walls.

But most notably, there was a man in an orange jumpsuit and smiling white mask leaning over him, radiating triumph and pride.

It took no amount of acting to make his heart beat faster, no amount of acting needed for the fear to flood through him.

The rambling that followed needed no acting. The screaming for help needed no acting. The confusion on how it’s been only _two days_ when Tommy’s been dead for _months_ needed no acting. The stumbling walk needed no acting. The dizziness and collapsing needed no acting. The flinching needed no acting.

The only thing he had to act about was the pleading, the begging for him to not revive Wilbur. Dream couldn’t revive Wilbur, Wilbur wasn’t the same, Wilbur was going to destroy everything if they brought him back.

In the end, despite his terror and the fact that he was _trapped_ here, _again_ , a small ping of victory and triumph made its way into his chest

The small ping turned into a glorious rush as an indeterminate amount of time later, Dream pulled out a book and began the process of reviving Wilbur.

Tommy was acting when he screamed and cried and desperately tried to wrestle the book from Dream’s hands. Tommy was acting when he screamed for Sam to let him out because: “Dream’s going to kill me again! Please!” Tommy was acting as he froze in terror, pressed up in the corner, breathing heavily, as Dream murmured incomprehensible gibberish.

Tommy dropped the facade the moment he saw bone and muscle and fabric knit together from nothing, staring in disgust and awe as green and gold and white sparks encircled the center of the room as two leather work boots appeared. Followed by dark-clad legs and the bottom hem of a familiar brown trench coat.

He couldn’t keep the grin off his face as a torso appeared, followed by arms, a neck, a head, a familiar mop of curly brown hair, a dark beanie, sharp as flint eyes, round glasses.

Tommy watched as Wilbur came back to his surroundings, wide eyed and pained and overwhelmed but _alive_. Trembling on his legs like Tommy’s had done when he woke up in that field and when he was resurrected in this box what could have only been mere hours ago.

Tommy and Wilbur made eye contact, and despite the pain and confusion in his older brother’s dark eyes, the brunette grinned.

“Oh Dream~” Wilbur murmured, breathing heavily as he cocked his head at the masked man, who had dropped his book and was clearly slack-jawed, though they couldn’t see it, at Tommy and Wilbur’s matching grins.

“You fucked up for the last time, Dream~” Tommy said in a sing-song tone, taking two long strides across the room until he was intertwining his hand with Wilbur’s. His older brother’s weight pressed heavily against him for balance but the teen didn’t mind.

Dream stumbled back until his back hit the wall, fingernails scrabbling uselessly at the obsidian as he stared them down.

Tommy and Wilbur didn’t have to see the fear on the masked man’s face to know it was there, and they _knew_ it was there.

Good.

**Author's Note:**

> Twitter: @Rose12610  
> Tumblr: @alwaysananxiousmess
> 
> kjghksjghjkghkjg i really liked writing this one, ngl. just... the horror of realizing you’re dead and not being able to process it. the last bit was something i decided to throw in later, the original outline ended with wilbur and tommy going to the afterlife together. i started writing this before the stream where tommy was revived, and the ending was modified to make this a bit more canon. i like how it turned out though


End file.
